There has been a lot of talk in the past couple of days about duty and service. They are spoken of with a kind of nostalgia, like these are values that haven't been held since the early baby boomers. I disagree. A thread. 1/9

During the war years, everyone was organizing. Letter writing, mitten drives, care packages, providing for military families and, the biggest organizing effort of all, recruiting soldiers and sending them to die in a war. 2/9

The call to service connected to a larger ideal that was held by society, to elevate certain values over others. WWII had the benefit of a truly evil enemy to greater solidify commitment to the war effort. 3/9

Then, people started to question many of the institutions to which they were duty bound. Is this a just war? Will we continue to uphold governments and organisations that exclude and commit violence?

(This is VERY simplified) 4/9

This is the point where we start to say things like, "People no longer have a sense of duty". And we were partly right. The sense of duty to decades and centuries old institutions was diminished as members asked critical questions and were not satisfied with the response. 5/9

But here's the thing. Duty and service still exist. They are powerful motivators. What has shifted are the values that will entice duty and service, as the war years did. We get scared and critical because people are leaving war effort type orgs in droves. 6/9

But they aren't leaving to sit on their laurels. They are shifting to other movements and organizing efforts that reflect their values. And they will fight and work and sacrifice and, yes, will lay down their lives for it. 7/9

Duty and service are alive and well. I see it in Indigenous rights movements, feminist movements, anti-racist movements, LGBTQ2S movements full of people young and old who will give up livelihoods and time with their families to fight to make the world a better place. 8/9

And, unlike the service orgs of old, very few of these folks will receive any recognition or reward.

Duty and service haven't changed. How and why we organize has.

To learn more about how generations are volunteering these days, read this. https://upwithpeople.org/uwp-blog/meet-generation-volunteers/ /end